Race Report

Race Report

We know some of you are still buried under snow and probably expecting more on the forecast. And while everyone in SoCal is experiencing “freezing” temperatures by SoCal standards, we are doubly blessed to have an indoor velodrome where precipitation and temperature are never an issue!

This past weekend marked a double track season start on the west coast. With Saturday omnium racing taking place in San Jose at the Hellyer Velodrome. As well as the first of 5 Monday night LAVRA sprint tournaments here in LA at the Velo Sports Center.

While all the BPC athletes had many positive achievements on the track in either tactics and/or the time trials, one athlete stood out above them all: Joe Camacho. Joe has been a champion of 2 things in the past 6 months: consistency in training and complaining! All JOE-ks aside though, Joe has demonstrated great determination and believe in his training program by suffering (with much theatrics at times) through grueling track workouts, hill climbs and 70+ mile road rides these past months which paid out some of their dividends this past weekend.

On Friday Joe attended his normally scheduled Breakfast club session and powered through his full training workload like every other week. After the session, he loaded his car full of bikes and racing equipment and made the 6+ hour drive to San Jose for their season opening Omnium. On race day, newly skinny Joe not only survived the “freezing” temps at the track, but also put out some of his best mass start racing results with the “A” field that even saw him claim a podium spot in the elimination race! Then on Sunday after racing, not wanting to miss any training, Joe completed his scheduled training in San Jose and then drove back to LA Sunday night arriving after 10pm.

Motivated from the weekend and more determined than ever, Joe got up at zero-dark-thirty like every other Monday and joined the breakfast club for another full session of training with great speed and consistency. After track Joe completed his full work day and with all this equipment still in the car from the morning session, proceeded to race to the track arriving only minutes before the racing started to contest the 200m TT and sprint tournament. And then, even after a overly full weekend of training, racing and travel, plus work, Joe warmed up and still delivered a new PR 200m time in FEBRUARY! He then followed his 200m up with some of the best executed sprint racing he’s had yet! Way to go Joe!

We are very proud of all our athletes for their determination and dedication to their training and racing. But we did want to take a second to highlight and chronicle Joe’s journey to this phenomenal early season achievement. We hope it will serve as a testament and motivation for everyone regardless of their goals, that with the right attitude and game plan, amazing things can be accomplished even with all the crazy stuff “life” can throw at us.